We are vessels uniquely made by God. He created our bodies, but the “vessel” has little to do with skin that grows wrinkled with age. If we let him, God’s artistry makes our inner form more pliable and stronger throughout our lives.
He does not toss the undeserving aside as garbage or make us perfect to sit as an untouched knick-knack. God focuses on our dysfunction until we become essential. Father desires to reform the broken and rededicate the lifeless. Our Creator creates utilitarian vessels, beautifully crafted, and practical. He fashions each one of us in a style and size all our own, for his purposes.
God becomes our passion and fills us with fire that satisfies. The fire is God, not just a symbol or metaphor. God’s presence is living fire. Through our obedience, God teaches His ways of love. We simply hold his fire as a vessel. Without fire, our usefulness draws dust. Filled with strange fire, we become an abomination. With his fire, we become exceptional.
Sometimes we are small vessels. Censers contain only a tiny fire, but that fire combined with a bit of incense produces an aroma that fills a room with perfume. Firepots are lidded bowls that store embers for tomorrow’s bonfire. A single candle can light a room, flooding out the darkness of stumbling fear.
Sometimes God expands our vessels to contain a blaze. As a torch, we carry his brilliance into the darkest pits. A brilliant beacon on a hill calls the lost home. Controlled wildfire pushes back the enemy and destroys its escape.
Our willingness to house God’s fire builds his Temple within us. We become a holy place where seekers meet their Creator. He can take even “the least” of us and form that vessel into his holy altar when we confess our sins. God does all the rest. Throughout our lives, our Creator wants us to present our sins. He waits for us to sacrifice our selfishness and pride, those thoughts and actions that block the light. God purifies us daily with his blood and removes transgressions from our record. He smelts our life into malleable gold.
God does the same with our community’s corporate sins, those acts that bind us together but are not his ways. Like the Jews of the Bible, too many Christians believe God will save them simply because they call themselves Christian. Hardness grows within. This pride-filled sense of security lets strange fire fill our vessel. Eventually, God will purge the offense. Only his fire produces a clean people.
The community that requires our assistance first consists of believers. Complacency allows the world’s ways to become normality. We must not blind ourselves to these by claiming they are other people’s sins. Fighting the great world sins starts at home, inside each of God’s children.
Be his vessel.
One Response
Well done, as usual, Jo.